But his hands were on this woman’s forearms to steady her. His eyes took in her scuffed face, which bore bruises and scrapes that spoke of force. But it seemed she was just shaken rather than violated.
Slurring his words, he’d said, “You should let me see to you.”
“You couldn’t see to anybody. The blue ruin has made sure of that.”
Then she hit him in the chest, and he let go of her arms with a cough. She didn’t get far before he spoke up, again. He didn’t know what possessed him. Partially, he wished to know she was all right.
“I might be drunk, yes,” he called to her retreating back, “but I’m also a medical man. A physician, no less.”
Fat load of good it did Annie, he thought.
He could only imagine what her death would have been like had they been in love. Crushing, probably. As things were, he was arbitrating guilt that he had not loved her more. He was not superstitious enough to think he’d caused her misfortune with his lack of romantic regard. But he still sometimes believed she’d deserved more than a best friend in a husband. Particularly if, in the end, she was to die because of him.
And of late, he was writing more than he was mending bodies. True, he never showed the tales to anyone, but he was fond of his words and the expression they allowed him.
Viola’s footsteps slowed as she hesitated. “My father is expecting me.”
“Your father knows you’re out this late, alone?”
She did not answer him.
He tried again. “He knows you’re dressed as a man?”
She stopped walking, then charged right back to him. “So what if he does?”
Duncan smiled. “Come, you really should have someone see to that cut above your eye.” It was starting to drip blood down her eyebrow and onto her eyelid. He couldn’t tell if her eyebrow was split, or the cut was higher than the brow itself and simply oozing. “It will scar.”
“I don’t care if it will scar,” she said, but there was no fight in it. She surveyed him. He was sure nothing could escape her notice. “I also shouldn’t go with a strange man to an undisclosed location.”
“Says the woman dressed as a man with the scuffed-up face as she wanders the street after midnight. Alone. I’ve a pistol, if we needed it.”
She almost laughed but kept a straight expression. “I’m Viola Black.”
Duncan didn’t trust himself to bow. His coordination was too clumsy. He’d also never make a proper shot in this state.
But he inclined his head a little and said, “Dr. Duncan Neilson. I would offer you my arm, but I fear I’m a wee too wobbly for that.”
“But not too wobbly to see to a cut that might need stitches? Or to shoot an aggressor?”
“That’s an excellent point.” Duncan paused. He remembered something Watson had mentioned about the hostess whose venue he’d just left.
It was a risqué place, but he doubted a woman who seemed to possess Viola’s habits would take much issue with that. Watson said Mrs. Dove-Lyon was in command of some medical skill—Duncan didn’t have the slightest idea of what he meant. Nor did he know how she might have come by it, although he could have hazarded a guess. In his experience, the ladies who made it their business to provide pleasure also knew much about addressing common injuries.
Men sometimes joked that they’d rather go to a courtesan than a doctor to be diagnosed with one of Venus’ ailments. The ladies were also usually handy with a needle and thread, as well as disinfection. He took a breath and said, “If you consent to it, I’d like to take you somewhere until you regain your footing. We can see about the cut, and perhaps look you over under better light, Miss Black.”
Viola hesitated. “Your home, Dr. Neilson?”
“No.”
“Where, then?”
“It may not be the most illustrious of places, but I assure you that you will be safe.”
“How ominous.”
Smiling at her droll words, Duncan said, “Hardly. I just gather that it has a bit of a reputation.”
Tiredly, fiddling with her lapel, Viola said, “I do not mind places with a reputation, but are you prevaricating?”
He shrugged. “Not really. Have you heard of the Lyon’s Den, Miss Black? I was only just there, and I believe you would be able to take some refreshment and rest.”
Duncan stayed still. Instead of thinking about how the room swirled even with his eyes closed, he thought of Viola’s soft but decided voice and wondered what sort of woman she was. A couple of hours under Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s keen eyes hadn’t quite told him, and he could not banish the question from his mind.
Chapter Two
It had been seven days since Viola’s unfortunate encounter with the ruffians. Her head still ached. They had not beaten her, luckily. But one of them, once she’d been cornered against a brick wall, struck her for fighting back. She shouldn’t have, but it was difficult not to when it was her first instinct. It was not about the money, for the amount she had on her person was not considerable.
Struggling was purely a reaction.
Glancing at her father across their breakfast spread, she knew which of her parents she had to thank for that trait. She wouldn’t say he had a temper. He had never hit her. But his reaction to threats—generally, the threats had more to do with his clients and their legal issues, so they were fairly sedate anyway—was swift and decisive.
Malcolm Black would never have been shoved against a cold brick wall and pummeled. He would have struck back.
Viola had, and she’d been hit near her eye for the trouble.
At least you finished the play that Slim wanted before you were assaulted.
It was a light confection of a play, all comedy, about a girl who was supposed to be married to her sweetheart. It would do well, she thought. She was pleased to be finished. Not because she hated it, either.
There would be no way she could concentrate on getting words on a page when her head felt like someone had tried the ancient art of trepanning through her skull.
Papa read one of his papers as he drank his coffee, and they sat in companionable silence. She had incredibly few memories of her mother, who’d passed when she was little. It had always been her and Papa, which suited her. They understood each other. With her proclivities, she needed all of the understanding she could get.
The first time she’d slipped out of the house to try to sell a play, it was the fourth time she’d snuck to a theater. She’d already made some acquaintances and, already, there was an interested company director.
Papa was in wait, ready to intercept her, lingering by the old grandfather clock as though he were a dock worker taking a break from his labors.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he’d said. His arms were crossed, and his tone was droll.
First, she tried to lie. “I am… I just couldn’t sleep. I thought I would go for a walk?”
“Dressed like a lad?”
“Sometimes, I want to know what it is like. Being a boy. You know.” She pasted an unconvincing smile onto her face.
There really was no lying to him.
“Viola, out with it.”
She did not quite expect he would let her go, but he had. Especially after learning she’d already done it several times and lived to tell the tale. Papa was pragmatic that way. In most respects, he did let her behave almost exactly as a boy might. Not in every way, for she’d had to procure the clothes herself. She found it easier to pass through the streets alone if she did not wear her usual dresses and accoutrements.
She told him nearly everything as a consequence of their relationship, but she could not bring herself to tell him everything about the night she’d been robbed.
She drank her tea and sighed. Perhaps it was because of Dr. Neilson.
In her opinion, if her father was so lax about her going to see her plays performed—and to negotiate their sale in the first place—he would probably not mind overmuch if she dropped into an establishment where gamin
g took place. And from what she had seen of the Lyon’s Den, everything was run like a tight ship. There were men at the doors in case of trouble. Wolves, Dr. Neilson called them. It was apt. The dealers all seemed as though they’d never tolerate any cheating or violence, either.
After meeting the perplexing Mrs. Dove-Lyon, she got the sense that the owner would not allow anything evil to befall women.
Men, possibly, but only if they deserved it, and never at the expense of her business’ peace or prestige.
That had been an experience. Being tended to by a veiled woman dressed all in black, a woman who presented herself as a widow and had the dexterous hands of a physician.
Or a courtesan.
All right, so perhaps it was both Dr. Neilson and Mrs. Dove-Lyon who kept her from telling Papa everything, for once.
Truth all told, she would rather have had Dr. Neilson tending to her. But he had not lied about having too much to drink. He got them to Cleveland Row, which was where he’d come from when she crashed into him, but she did not think his hands could have managed a cut on her face.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon had cleaned it, inspected it once there was no blood to obscure the sight, and pronounced it not in need of stitches. Viola was very relieved to hear that. She did not mind blood, but she did mind needles.
While this mysterious lady saw to her, she had the luxury of covertly studying Dr. Neilson across the intimate parlor. They were well above the din of the main floor, in what might or might not have been a private residence. She had not known Mrs. Dove-Lyon for more than half an hour, and already she was too nervous to ask about the particulars of her living and business arrangements.
She did not think any questions would be taken kindly, despite the woman’s gracious manner.
Dr. Neilson had dark hair with a little gray at the temples, and brown eyes that were the color of properly brewed tea without milk. He was about half a foot taller than her – but everyone was taller than her – and slender for a man. It brought to mind an athlete, or one of the dancers she’d met who traveled about the country to perform in various theaters. There was nothing she might call weak about him. He just wasn’t enormous, like one of the wolves at the Lyon’s Den’s doors. Then again, she did not know who was.
He wore dear attire. It did not look out of place among the men they’d passed to come up here, which made her wonder about his circumstances. Not all doctors she had seen looked so well-situated. Unlike some of those, she surmised he was actually a doctor. A licensed physician. Not just a surgeon putting on airs who should have just been called a mister.
Had she not been so rattled, she would have enjoyed being near Dr. Neilson very much.
He, on the other hand, was probably only doing his duty as a physician, making sure she was taken care of.
That was what she told herself, anyway.
Because if he didn’t really care, she did not know why he would remain. He could have just gone back downstairs. There were little looks he gave her, longer ones than normal, which belied his interest was more than just that of a benevolent stranger.
The implications of a man being interested in her were too complicated for the moment. More to the point, she had never minded if one was.
So, she was unsure if she liked the way Dr. Neilson had stolen her thoughts.
“What were you doing out on your own so late?”
She parried his impertinent question with another which she wagered might annoy him. Similar ones always irked Papa. “Where are you from originally?”
She had a reasonable inkling. Papa’s speech had mellowed considerably, but whenever he went on a visit to Uncle Jax’s, he came back with his original patterns redoubled until they ebbed again. Dr. Neilson seemed similar in that respect.
“Where do you think?” was the mulish reply.
She could not blame him but was a little smug that she’d managed to prod him slightly. He had no way of knowing her parentage. So many of the English could be unreasonably patronizing, and a sea of ladies seemed to think Scottish men were a bit of something wild they could refine. Ridiculous, she thought.
“Fine. Where’d you study medicine?”
“Edinburgh,” he said.
She winced as Mrs. Dove-Lyon dabbed at her cut again, this time with something that stung.
“Dr. Neilson is a new patron, but I’ve found his conduct to be impeccable.”
Viola looked at her with some skepticism. While she could not deny the attraction she had toward him, he was intoxicated and had taken her back to a gambling hell.
It was a very sumptuous hell, but a hell nonetheless.
“Impeccable?” asked Viola.
“Oh, indeed.” The black veil moved with her breath and words. Viola could not make out her eyes. “How many nights has Watson brought you here, then, Doctor?”
“Collectively? Six. No, seven.”
“I knew I’d watched you enough to have an opinion,” said Mrs. Dove-Lyon. To Viola, she explained, “Watson is one of my best. I trust his judgment, as far as any man’s goes.” She drew back and put a slightly bloodied rag back on a little porcelain dish. “Well, my dear, I think you shall be fine, but I would prefer it if you remained here on this seat for at least half an hour. There’s no telling what an impact to the face can do to one’s head.”
Viola was going to protest until Dr. Neilson said, “I agree. I shall remain, if that is amenable?”
She held her tongue.
“I will send Helena up to act as a chaperone.”
“It’s only proper,” said Dr. Neilson.
Viola did not bother pointing out that the idea of a chaperone, when she was dressed as a man and a drunk doctor had guided her there, was rather beside the point. Off his carefully neutral expression, she guessed he was thinking the same kind of thing. Mrs. Dove-Lyon swept away, and Viola was once again alone with him.
A pleasant predicament.
After a moment, he said, “May I ask… try to ask… again. Why are you dressed like this?” He sounded more curious than scathing. “And did they truly not guess you weren’t a man?”
“You would be surprised what people see. If they have it in mind that I’m a man, then that’s what I am to them.”
He grinned and shook his head, sending hair falling into his angular face. She wanted to push it back into place.
“I don’t think I’d look at you and see a lad,” he said.
Viola had just about swooned on the spot, but managed to say, “Then you must be looking closer than others do.”
She wrinkled her nose as though warding off a bad smell instead of recent, warming memories, and put down her teacup.
Papa was still reading. No, she should not tell him about Dr. Neilson. She’d rarely been silly over men and probably shouldn’t take up the practice now.
She would not mind being a spinster with a little double-life and could not think of a man besides him who would accept her, anyway.
The way her thoughts kept returning to her misadventure had everything to do with a pair of warm, brown eyes and graceful hands.
Do not think of his hands!
He would have to be a character in a play. That was it.
“I wonder whether you’d accompany me to see an old friend this evening,” Papa said.
It was almost idle, a light thing that sounded like a request. But it was not. She knew that tone: it was the same one she heard drifting from the study. He used it with some of his more recalcitrant clients.
She wondered if she was mistaken in thinking she had emerged from the robbery without consequences. He’d been suspiciously calm when she had returned home that evening. Her hours were often late, but almost four hours past midnight was not usual for her. She also could not hide the damage to her face.
“I wonder if I have a choice, Papa.”
“You do, of course. You can decide how to say yes. I am sure you’ve picked up some acting acumen from those with whom you rub shoulders.”
Resignation
crept out of her in a sigh. “I have no appointments.”
“Good. We shall be going to Whitehall.”
Viola kept a grumble to herself. She had seen rather more of Whitehall than she wished, of late.
Returning to the locale wouldn’t help her forget Dr. Neilson’s hands, either.
—
Watson appeared to have little sympathy for him at breakfast after another particularly rough night.
A night in which he had committed himself to be married, apparently.
Duncan resented the lack of sympathy more than his newfound obligation, which he hoped was entirely fictitious.
“You are telling me I did what?”
His old friend was actively trying not to laugh at him. “I don’t know what to tell you. There are no wagers, no bets, nothing that gets erased in the Lyon’s Den. She won’t allow it. I told you about the services she provides. I don’t like them; that isn’t why I go there—I like the safety.” Watson paused to push his spectacles back into place. Then he added an amendment. “Well, I like knowing I won’t get drugged by some opportunist and left for dead several hours later. That is safety of a sort.”
“And Moth and Tom make eyes at you often enough,” said Duncan. He snuck a look at Watson. “The jovial dealers certainly don’t hurt, do they?”
They were all of a certain persuasion, as well as impeccably dressed and groomed. He would call them dandies, but suspected they were all far too good with pistols and boxing to fall under the category. In short, they were too useful to fit the definition.
“Oh, they have made more than that at me, my friend.”
Duncan buttered his toast so soundly it almost slipped off his plate. He snorted, unoffended and genuinely amused.
You did start it, though.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Moth left far too many lovers’ marks last time for it to have been a mere fantasy of mine.”
“Perhaps Moth can put in a good word for me with his mistress,” said Duncan through a bite of toast.
The Lyon's Den in Winter: The Lyon's Den Page 2